Skip to main content

Middle East War Escalation to Drive GOLD Prices 'Significantly Higher': James Rickards

Commodity Culture Sep 16, 2026 59:05

Summary

Rickards argues the Middle East conflict, central-bank buying, and dollar weakness will drive gold significantly higher from around $4,300.

The guest says silver has both monetary and industrial tailwinds and typically catches up to gold after it starts moving.

Rickards says rising US Treasury yields reflect a foreign dollar shortage, not a flight from the dollar, since central banks sell Treasuries to obtain dollars.

He calls the dollar's reserve status durable and BRICS-replacement talk hype because no rival bond market has the depth or rule of law to compete.

Rickards notes the US could mark the Fed's gold certificate to roughly $4,300/oz and unlock about $1 trillion in Treasury cash without new debt.

Robert Kiyosaki's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Robert Kiyosaki is identified as a co-investor (alongside Rickards) in Callfort, an AI-powered scam-call blocking app, and described as the best-selling personal finance author of all time (Rich Dad Poor Dad).

Scott Bessent's takeaways

  • Top takeaway The guest describes Bessent as having extended hundreds of billions in USD-yen currency swaps to Japan so the Bank of Japan could defend the yen without selling U.S. Treasuries.
  • Rickards argues Bessent's motivation is to keep Treasury yields contained ahead of the midterm elections, since higher yields feed into mortgage rates and benchmark corporate borrowing costs.

James Rickards's takeaways

  • Top takeaway Rickards argues gold is set to move significantly higher from around $4,300, calling the pullback from ~$4,500 normal volatility and pointing to the $3,900 level holding as a firm base, with central bank buying still intact and Iran-driven geopolitical risk as the key driver.
  • The guest argues the true oil price is roughly $150 a barrel, not the ~$105 Brent futures print, citing crack spreads near $60 and wet-cargo spot prices around $140 driven by Iran's hold on the Strait of Hormuz and Houthi control of the Red Sea / Bab el-Mandeb.
  • Rickards is bullish on silver, citing both precious-metal tailwinds and structural industrial demand from AI-driven data-center buildouts by Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia and others, since silver is used in electronics, circuits and semiconductor production.
  • He pushes back against the 'end of the dollar' narrative, arguing rising Treasury yields reflect a global dollar shortage (Japan and China selling Treasuries to defend their own currencies) rather than a flight from USD, and dismissing BRICS payment rails as a substitute for U.S. Treasury markets.
  • Rickards walks through the Fed's gold certificate ā€” about 8,100 metric tons at the legacy $42.22/oz valuation ā€” arguing the U.S. legally cannot sell gold below this level and that revaluing to roughly $4,300 could create about $1 trillion in Treasury cash without issuing new debt.